Oktoberfest!

I've been out of town for the past week or so, hence the lack of posting. But I will do a follow up post in a bit because I never blogged about Mom's last week in Copenhagen! But I'm going to skip ahead for now, because just this morning I got back from OKTOBERFEST!!!! Here are my some observations from the trip

By the Numbers:

Amount of beer in one stein --> 1L

Liters of beer consumed personally --> 4.5

Average number of steins the beer maids could carry --> 8-10

# of large pretzels consumed --> 2.5

Total hours at Oktoberfest --> 18

# of Beer Halls visited --> 4, but we hit one twice.

The People:

Munich ended up being a mini-Hastings reunion. I went with two other exchange students from my law school (both Hastings and CPH), along with another friend of theirs. We met up with 6 other Hastings student over the course of our time there. Additionally one of the girls from my school met up with a college friend of hers, who ended up being a guy from my HS (anyone from TP remember Ferdie?!?!) Small world...

The Venue:

I expected Oktoberfest to pretty much be a big grassy field with several tents set up and people getting drunk inside. Dude, Oktoberfest is way cooler than that. For the San Diegans, I would compare it too the Del Mar Fair, except without the livestock, more affordable, and with big Halls that are filled with benches and people drinking beer, a liter at a time. I think the Del Mar Fair could greatly benefit from some Beer Halls.

There were rides, and AMAZING food and snacks and desserts, and then, of course, the beer halls. It was a fantastic place to be.

Random Oktoberfest Observations:

Apparently, the White Stripes song is a drinking anthem. About every 15 minutes someone would start screaming the beat, but as no one really knows the words it sounds like "BAH buh-buh-buh-buh BAAH BAAH." This can be repeated almost indefinitely.

I am also quite sick of what I assume is the Bavarian national anthem. The bands would play that one about every 10 minutes.

Breakfast at Oktoberfest is a unique concept. Both days we arrived around 9 AM and for breakfast had a large pretzel and a stein of beer. When in Rome...

This is the last of my first pretzel. It was very heartbreaking that I finished the whole thing :-P

I saw people stack steins of beer mugs about 8 feet high, an impressive feat for when you consider that people must have consumed all that beer in order to have the empty mugs in the first place.

If you wear a costume (i.e. a bavarian dress) to Oktoberfest, you will get your picture taken about a thousand times. Also, a LOT of people dress up. Many pictures were taken (sorry, your truly did not dress up, but many of my friends did!)

The Tourists:

We also spent some time being tourists in Munich. The first day we did a walking tour to get ourselves oriented with Munich. I had been there before, but not for several years, and didn't really feel like I got a good feel for the city when I was. The walking tour was okay, but I really enjoyed the last day in Munich. We did a Third Reich walking tour and saw many of the places where Hitler was first building up his power and prestige. It was a nice contrast to the scene at Oktoberfest to get a little history about Munich. In WWII about 70% of the city was destroyed, and much of the buildup to Hitler's power started there. It was interesting to learn about, especially since i head to Berlin in a week and will be able to get more history on that period there as well.

Ok, that's all for now! PROST!